Courtlandt Palmer (1871-1951) Piano Concerto in C

[Darrel Hoffman]

Here's my rendition of this concerto:

Thanks to @Wheesht for requesting it and providing the score.

(Yes, there is an existing recording of this as performed by the composer himself, but it's not publicly accessible.)

[Ilja]

Just curious: did you use the recording by the composer (if you could access it) to determine tempi and things like rubato?

[Darrel Hoffman]

I did get a chance to listen to it, which caused me to greatly slow down the tempo.  I didn't try to match it exactly, there's just no way that was going to happen.  The tempi as written would've made this piece considerably shorter.  (It's around 17 minutes total when played at the tempi marked in the score).  The difference is mostly in the first 2 movements, the 3rd is much closer to what's written.

I'll say that hearing the composer's performance almost made me reconsider even posting this video, as my rendition cannot do it justice.  I've done my best, but this piece is far more expressive than anything I've done before, and some of that is inevitably going to be lost when you take the humans out of the process.  I actually generally try NOT to listen to any previously existing versions of pieces I do so as not to be overly influenced by them.  (Obviously most of my stuff is previously unrecorded, so there's nothing to listen to, but e.g. the Viotti PC's I did all have been recorded as violin concerti.)